Banking, Central Banks, and Global Economy
Posts relating to regulation
This post is the second part of my earlier post on reputation risk. It is an enlarged version of the portion on strategic risk from my speaking notes used for a talk on reputation and strategic risk to the members of the Board of Directors of a bank based outside India. Needless to say, this is an introductory piece, as strategy, its risks, and their management, together constitute a huge subject in itself.
Continue reading “Strategic Risk in Banking”
This is an edited and updated version of my speaking notes used for an address on managing strategic and reputation risk to the members of the Board of Directors of a bank based outside India. I will cover strategic risk in a future post. The talk drew substantially from the writings of Prof. Charles R. Fombrun, especially his book on Reputation, apart from other references as indicated. Continue reading “Managing reputation risk”
Lessons from reliability and bathtub curve for busting crimes
Formidable military cantonments with awe-inspiring security have existed for centuries. Treasure, including notes and coins, have also moved for centuries. Banks have time-honoured systems and processes for internal control and audit.
Nevertheless, we hear of security breaches in military establishments. The choice of time, location, and other details point to a high level of planning. Daring and well-planned train robberies involving sovereign treasure make some Western flicks seem like minor pickpocketing. Bank frauds the size of several Satyam frauds point to governance failures from top to bottom. Investigations followed, and responsibility fixed. The immediate causes were familiar. System failures, noncompliance with laid down procedures, and ignoring established norms. One rarely identified root causes to see why noncompliance took place. And what actions could prevent them in the future. Continue reading “Frauds, terrorism, and bathtub curve”
A critical look at IMF recommendations on financial stability concerns from Fintech and DeFi
Fintech is technological innovation in financial activities, or in other words, financial innovation aided by technology. This by itself is not new. The ATMs which made their entry in the late 1960s was also in this sense, fintech. With the rapid growth in crypto assets in recent years, and that of decentralised ledger technology (DLT), fintech has evolved and grown rapidly in recent years to provide traditional banking functions, including deposit taking and lending. Referred to as Decentralized Finance, or DeFi for short, it threatens to disintermediate banks from savers and borrowers, transform the traditional banking landscape, and threaten financial stability. The IMF flagged its concerns in the third chapter of the April 2022 issue of its biannual Global Financial Stability Report (GFSR). Continue reading “Fintech and Financial Stability”
The growth of cryptocurrencies in the last decade has forced many central banks across the world to consider issuing their own version, called Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). There have been several studies, official and private, that examine the pros and cons of introducing CBDC. Eswar Prasad in his new book provides a comprehensive look at the entire gamut of issues relating to CBDC.
My review of Eswar Prasad’s new book on fintech, cryptos, and CBDC: Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution is Transforming Currencies and Finance. Continue reading “CBDC and the Future of Money”
Lessons from Theranos for Corporate Governance
This Holmes was the subject of many investigations and a trial that ended in conviction. She was not just complicit. She was the perpetrator. If the DOB (Directors on Board) did not bark or howl, they were well taken care of. Even if they whined, she charmed her way through. In any case, they seemed keen to add a new generation tech firm to an already impressive list of credentials. They were victims of the promise or illusion of mentoring the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.
Such a bland assessment would have been kosher for most ordinary Boards. But we have here the likes of George Shultz (1920-2021), former Secretary of State, and also of labour and treasury, best known as the man who ended the cold war. If Shultz was not enough, we have Henry Kissinger (b. 1923), former secretary of state, and William Perry (b. 1927), former secretary of defence. All of them were then, or are now, in their 90s. The Holmes-Theranos affair offers interesting lessons for good corporate governance. Continue reading “Holmes and the Theranos Affair”
Out of the several money laundering cases in recent years, two of the most disturbing were those of Danske Bank and Swedbank, mainly because they were headquartered in Nordic countries where such cases were rare. Moreover, these countries are known for high standards of living, and very low levels of crime and corruption. Continue reading “The Swedbank case”
Germany is not particularly known for corporate scandals. Unlike the USA or UK. Or the rest of Europe. The last big one was Volkswagen. But, one involving Wirecard, the payment processing firm with a global footprint, has been unravelling over the last one week, since Ernst & Young (EY), the company’s auditors, announced that it could not find USD 2.1 billion (Euro 1.9 billion), roughly a quarter of the balance sheet size. This is a first for the DAX, a 30-member index trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. Continue reading “The Wirecard Scandal”
The IMF released yesterday the first chapter of its half-yearly Global Financial Stability Review (GFSR) for April 2020. The GFSR “provides an assessment of the global financial system and markets, and addresses emerging market financing in a global context. It focuses on current market conditions, highlighting systemic issues that could pose a risk to financial stability and sustained market access by emerging market borrowers. The Report draws out the financial ramifications of economic imbalances highlighted by the IMF’s World Economic Outlook.” Continue reading “IMF’s Global Financial Stability Review, April 2020: Markets in the Time of Covid-19”
Tobias Adrian and Aditya Narain of the IMF, in their article titled “Maintaining Banking System Safety amid the COVID-19 Crisis” (31 March 2020), suggest how national band supervisors should respond to ensure continued trust and confidence in the banking system. Continue reading “Covid-19 pandemic and banking regulation”